Programme started at 2000, it's now 2040 and we've not heard a note of the recitals yet - just profiles of the players.  Shopping, posting on facebook, celebrating their birthdays, brushing out their dogs, telling the camera what real fun it is to play in the NYO and how we're all good mates ....

Wasn't this supposed to be a music competition?  Who is responsible for this moronic drivel?  What does this say about the BBC's commitment to music?

The P45s should be being written NOW.

 

Absolutely unbelievable.

Not sure if FF is correct about Roger Wright's responsibility for classical music programming on tv, I thought it was somebody called Peter Maniura ? Anyway, that is by the by. Can only echo that I watched the show tonight with increasing incredulity. Oh well, I have quite a busy week and was wondering how to juggle things so that I could record and watch the heats prior to the final. Now at least I won't have to bother with that.

The kids were personable enough so why couldn't they have shown the performances on BBC 4 and had the Facebook fest as a preamble on BBC 3, which might have encouraged a few casual viewers switch channels to see what the music was like ?

I think the most offensive aspect of the whole thing (and this programme made me angrier than anything I have seen on TV for a long time) was the subtext of "These people are talented classical musicians, but, hey, wow, they're really just normal kids" - a subtext that tells you everything you need to know about the cultural assumptions of the people who commissioned and made the programme.  Classical music (or perhaps even enthusiasm and achievement, in the eyes of these pushers of the poisonous philosophy of cool) is seen by these people as abnormal, something to be a bit ashamed of, like flatulence or picking your nose on the train. So it can't be presented straight, least of all to the point where viewers can be expected to sit through an hour of actual music-making.

I wonder if the performers realised how deeply they were being patronised?

Strangely enough, if they were kicking a ball around, or running round a track, nobody would comment.  One of the reflections arising from tonight's farrago is how much less seriously the BBC takes music than sport ...

What Martle says is quite true - sporty youngsters are presented as wholly admirable, their dedication to be admired and emulated. They're never asked if they are keen on playing the flute as well, whereas the most common question to a male child who's good at classical music - choirboys in particular seem to be subjected to this - is "Do you enjoy football?" If the answer is yes, there is an almost palpable sense of relief. This child, odd as he is, is actually showing signs of normality. Phew.

Amidst the tut-tutting over at TOP, an interesting development: a couple of the actual contestants have weighed in...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio3/F7497567?thread=5416827&skip=60&show=20

That's extremely common, indeed inevitable... sometimes you just know, when some particular unpremeditatedly stupid-sounding thing comes out of your mouth, that that's the soundbite which will be used. Having said that, and to put in a slightly more positive note, I've always found that the people on Radio 3, while editing things down to fit as everyone does, are not in the least prone to misrepresenting interviewees, except in so far as they always make me sound more articulate and interesting than I am.

I didn't see this Young Musician programme. In fact I haven't seen it for some years, but I remember even back then spending most of the programme waiting patiently for some music or at least some talk about music, as opposed to all the surrounding personality fluff. If that's got even worse now I wonder why they don't drop the music altogether and make it into a dating gameshow or something.